U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at the Coosa Steel Corporation on Feb. 19, 2026 in Rome, Georgia. Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images Forty minutes before the federal government revealed that economic growth slowed sharply in the last quarter, President Donald Trump dropped a hint that the incoming data would be weaker. “The Democrat Shutdown cost the U.S.A. at least two points in GDP. That’s why they are doing it, in mini form, again,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post at 7:50 a.m. ET. At 8:30 a.m., the Commerce Department reported that U.S. gross domestic product rose at an annualized rate of just 1.4% in the fourth quarter of 2025. That’s a decline of 3 percentage points from the previous three-month period. Trump’s Friday morning post referred to last year’s record-length government shutdown, which began Oct. 1 — the start of the fourth quarter — and lasted 43 days. The federal funding lapse was expected to take a toll on GDP. The U.S. Congressional Budget Office estimated that, depending on its length, the shutdown would …